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Friday, August 2, 2013

How I Stumbled Into Full Term Breastfeeding {Guest Post by Olivia of This West Coast Mommy}

My first child was born in March 2010. When I was pregnant I
knew I would breastfeed, but I hadn’t put much thought into it beyond that. I’d
heard that you were supposed to breastfeed exclusively for six months before
introducing solids, so I figured I’d give it those six months at least. Of
course, as I did more research I realized babies still needed human milk even
after starting solids. She wasn’t going to switch from breastfeeding to surf
and turf on the day she turned 6 months! Okay, so a year then. That’s what most
moms did, wasn’t it?

I remember when my daughter was just a few days shy of her
first birthday. She didn’t look like
a “big kid”. She looked like my baby. I honestly didn’t buy that a few days
would suddenly make my milk worthless and unnecessary. So we kept nursing. As I
became more comfortable and more educated about being a mom, I discovered that
lots of women didn’t stop at a year. In fact, Health Canada and the World
Health Organization both recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6
months then continued breastfeeding for two years and beyond.

But a two year old isn’t a baby! Why would a two year old
need breast milk? I started doing some research and discovered that study after
study shows that the longer babies are breastfed, the better their outcomes. I
read anthropological research that presented several lines of evidence estimating
the natural, normal age for humans to wean as somewhere between two and a half
to seven years old. If you’re interested, Katherine Dettwyler summarizes some
of the data here.
That’s what the full-term in full-term
breastfeeding means.

Nursing, or “sissies” as my daughter called it, was special
time – time for my toddler to slow down and take a break in her rush to learn
to walk, to run, to play, to talk. Breast milk was the magic potion that put
her to sleep at naptime and bedtime.
When she fell down or had night terrors, nursing soothed her hurts and
calmed her fears. At around 18 months, we night weaned. It took about a week
where I just explained, “Sissies is sleeping until morning.” Once we were
sleeping through the night, I didn’t see any pressing reasons to quit. On a
typical day she nursed once in the morning and once before naptime.

And then my daughter was about to turn two, and I got
pregnant with my second daughter. By this time, I knew two other moms who also
breastfed their babes into toddlerhood, as well as countless moms online. I
didn’t see it as weird anymore. I breastfed throughout my pregnancy and
continued to nurse my oldest after the new baby arrived in August 2012. I love
that my two daughters shared that nursing bond. I preferred to breastfeed one child
at a time, but the occasional time I tandem nursed, my oldest, then two and a
half, loved to hug and pet her new baby sister as they nursed together.

Like most families, we were super busy through the December holiday
season and spent many evenings out late. My daughter had new toys and family
visits and playmates that all took precedence over nursing. We missed one day,
then two days, then three. The last time she nursed was on New Year’s Eve 2012
at 34 months old, and so in the end she weaned herself gently and painlessly. Both
of us were ready to end this phase of our relationship, but I do still sometimes
miss the sweetness of her little hand patting my cheek or her beautiful green
eyes looking up at me.

My youngest will be turning a year old this month, and we
are still going strong. I hope our nursing relationship ends just as softly and
gently when the time is right for both of us. I’m comfortable leaving that up
to her.

Olivia is a wife, mommy to two little girls, social worker,
and blogger. You can find her at This
West Coast Mommy where she blogs about her family, natural parenting,
paleo-friendly recipes, and life on the Canadian West Coast.

@MotherhoodLooms: Thank you! I felt really comfortable and peaceful about how she finally weaned.

@Trista Laborn: What's interesting to me is how the goalpost kept moving once I reached it!

@S. Rowan Tackett: Thank you. I still miss it sometimes too.

@Mommy's Heart: I agree, the time that we spent nursing gave us special time together in the midst of all the busy chaos of having children. I'm sorry that things didn't work out as you wanted. I know many moms really struggle with breastfeeding.

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